Cancellation Watch Breaking News: Gotham Renewed for a Third Season, Person of Interest Will End After its Fifth Season

Catching up with two announcements from yesterday, neither of which come as much of a surprise.  FOX has renewed its Batman prequel series Gotham for a third season as expected (earlier this week I commented that it was almost certainly a lock for renewal).  That show’s ratings are down notably year over year, but in line with the ratings slump that the broadcast networks have experienced all season.  And the show has performed right about even with FOX’s average for non-sports, non-repeat programming, so I have been predicting the renewal most of the season.  This means that the show will almost certainly survive into a fourth year as well because it will be in the syndication stretch, meaning that one more season will get it to the number of episodes that the syndication market prefers.  So consider this one a lock on FOX for at least a couple more years.

Also announced yesterday, CBS has said that the upcoming fifth season of Person of Interest will be its last.  That has been pretty much assumed since the end of last season when it received a last minute renewal for only thirteen episodes.  Word from the show’s producers was that they approached the upcoming season as the show’s last and they will apparently work toward resolving its major storylines.  Whether this should be considered a cancellation is a judgement call, but the show will have reached 100 episodes across five years and will at least get a chance to go out on its own terms.  The fifth season debuts Tuesday May 3rd and the following week will start airing two episodes per week on Mondays and Tuesdays at 10 PM EST.